It's almost 2013 and Nintendo is now managing four digital platforms simultaneously, and what's more, they're doing a reasonable job with at least one of them! Who knew they had it in 'em? Not anyone with a Wii or DSi, that's for sure!

Here's a quick rundown of each platform that I'll edit later, maybe:

The Wii U eShop is Nintendo's first real attempt at making digital distribution a core part of their home console business - not only are they releasing far more games of all varieties but the platform is friendlier to indies and other third-party devs and more intuitive and hassle-free for customers. Barring some catastrophous cock-up, it should do okay! Here's what's been announced so far:

Downloadable Retail Software All first-party games will receive a simultaneous digital release on the eShop, available at midnight on release day, and Nintendo is "heavily encouraging" third-party publishers to follow suit. All first-party retail downloads will be prices at MSRP; third-party retail downloads may or may not be slightly cheaper.

eShop Games The eShop will also offer up a range of download-only games from first-party, third-party and indie publishers, and they won't be constrained by file size or pricing schemes or arbitrary Nintendo logic this time! (Theoretically, anyway.) Wii U eShop launch titles include Nano Assault Neo, Little Inferno, Trine 2, Chasing Aurora and Mighty Switch Force HD.

Wii U Virtual Console Games (eventually) All we know about the Wii U Virtual Console is that it's coming - no ETA, no list of supported consoles/games, no word on the feature set beyond off-TV play, nothing.

Other Junk! A variety of different apps and multimedia programs may or may not be available to you via the eShop depending on your region; NA already has apps for Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon and Youtube, for example, whereas the UK will probably get a BBC iView app and Australia won't get anything at all. Take 'em as they come, I guess.

WiiWare and Wii Virtual Console titles can also be purchased on Wii U via the Wii Shop Channel, accessible via Wii Mode, and can also be transferred from your Wii console. For a detailed rundown of the transfer process and the restrictions placed on Wii U when running Wii software, look further down the page. (tldr: if it's convenient, you can't do it.)

The Wii U eShop allows you to:

Browse the store mid-game

Buy games with real money in exact amounts, either by credit card or prepaid funds card

Download games, demos, patches and DLC in the background or in sleep mode

The 3DS eShop took a while to really get going but it now offers a good amount of supplementary digital material, including full retail titles, and has had a reasonably regular update schedule that's made it (marginally) more user-friendly. Here's what's on offer:

Downloadable Retail Software Nintendo has been doing simultaneous digital launches for retail games starting with NSMB2, and they're slowly releasing older retail titles for download, too. Again, third-party publishers are being "encouraged" to offer retail software digitally, but there's not a whole lot to choose from at the moment.

eShop Games The 3DS has built up a decent selection of first-party and indie eShop titles, including but not limited to Pushmo/Crashmo, Liberation Maiden, Colors! 3D, Mighty Switch Force and Denpa Men, and there are a lot of promising titles on the horizon such as Crimson Shroud, Shantae and the Pirate's Curse, Ikachan, Aero Porter and Nano Assault EX.

3DS Virtual Console Games The 3DS Virtual Console offers a somewhat modest selection of Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Gear and NES games; each game has been enhanced with save/restore states and... not much else, really. Don't bother asking if/when [game/console x] will be made available, because we don't know.

DSiWare The vast majority of DSiWare games are available for purchase on 3DS via the eShop; these games run in DS mode and can only be played from the system's internal memory. (For a detailed list of DSiWare-related restrictions, look further down the page.)

Other junk! There are a few free downloadable... things for 3DS, including Swapnote/Nintendo Letter Box (fun!), Nintendo Video (worthless!) and the StreetPass-based ad carrier Nintendo Zone (ugh!). NA also has Netflix, and PAL-land has some other miscellaneous garbage, as per usual.

The 3DS eShop allows you to:

Buy games with real money in exact amounts, either by credit card or prepaid funds card

The Wii Shop Channel has pretty much run its course; it was notoriously restrictive on customers, devs and publishers alike, and the percentage of good-to-crap WiiWare releases is extremely low, but now we can look back on the few good games instead of lamenting all the bad ones, maybe? I don't know.

WiiWare The prospects of any more good WiiWare releases are very slim, but there's a respectable catalogue of quality titles available for download, including but not limited to La-Mulana, Gradius/Contra/Castlevania Rebirth, Mega Man 9/10, Fluidity/Hydroventure, World of Goo and the Art Style series.

Wii Virtual Console Games The Wii Virtual Console offers some 200+ games over several different platforms, including NES, SNES, N64, Sega Master System, Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, Turbografx-16/CD, Neo Geo, Commodore 64 and Virtual Console Arcade. Games come with suspend states, but that's pretty much it in terms of extra features. (SNES/N64/some Neo Geo games require a Classic/Gamecube controller.)

Other junk! The Wii also has a small selection of apps for download, including Netflix/Hulu players, an internet browser and a Youtube app, as well as a bunch of goofy Nintendo-made channels that you'll download once and then never touch ever again.

The Wii Shop Channel allows you to:

Buy games with Nintendo Points, purchasable in 1000-point increments

Send gifts to friends who live in your country via Wii Address Book

Download games directly to SD card

Link to your Club Nintendo page for extra coins/stars

The DSi Shop Channel is available only on DSi, sells only DSiWare and isn't particularly remarkable besides, but for the sake of completeness, here's a rundown of what it can do:

Wii Virtual Console games (and WiiWare) can only be purchased from the Wii Shop Channel in Wii Mode. This channel uses Nintendo Points instead of standard currency and has a separate wallet from the eShop. You can buy Nintendo Points directly from the Wii Shop Channel using your credit card, but they can only be purchased in 1000-point increments.

Can I play Wii Virtual Console/WiiWare games on/with the Gamepad/Pro Controller?

No, and you probably won't ever be able to. WiiWare/Wii VC games require a Wiimote and in many cases a Classic Controller and/or Nunchuk.

Can I play WiiWare/Wii VC games from my external hard drive?

No, and you probably won't ever be able to. WiiWare/Wii VC games can only be played from the 512MB on-board storage reserved for Wii Mode, or a SD Card (32GB SDHC max).

PaletteSwappedNinja fucked around with this message at Nov 26, 2012 around 01:44

Several people (including myself) were having issues with purchasing and downloading new content from the eShop recently. The Error Code I was getting was 005-6535, and after looking it up on Nintendo's support site, it turns out that it's an "Invalid Zip Code or Address" error. Even though my address worked perfectly fine before, I imagine one of their eShop software updates probably just messed things up a bit. I followed the "Additional Steps" on this page and now it works fine: http://www.nintendo.com/consumer/wf...le=lang#country

I'm going to have to make an early recommendation for Little Inferno for the WiiU. It's a little pricy at 15 bucks, but it's an experience. The premise is pretty simple, you're given a fireplace and a catalog of stuff to burn. Everything thing you burn gets you more money than you started with to buy more stuff to burn. All the while you get letters from your neighbor, from Tomorrow Corp, and from The Weather Man. It's absolutely bizarre and like nothing else I've ever played.

Heads-up for PAL 3DS owners - neither Nintendo nor the publisher has mentioned it at all, but Virtue's Last Reward got a digital release on the eShop today. Price on the UK store is £30, haven't checked the EU stores. That's cheaper than the retail price, isn't it?

I got a 3DS a few days ago and I feel like I've lost my mind. The eshop is a pain in the rear end to navigate, but despite that I feel like I found F-Zero Maximum Velocity two nights ago. I was going to buy it but decided to wait until I played some original GB games.

I logged in today to buy it and I can't find it. Is there some trick to this store I'm just missing that makes it less difficult to navigate?

I got a 3DS a few days ago and I feel like I've lost my mind. The eshop is a pain in the rear end to navigate, but despite that I feel like I found F-Zero Maximum Velocity two nights ago. I was going to buy it but decided to wait until I played some original GB games.

I logged in today to buy it and I can't find it. Is there some trick to this store I'm just missing that makes it less difficult to navigate?

You didn't, because Maximum Velocity was one of the GBA Ambassador games that isn't available on the shop. No idea what the hell you saw, but that wasn't it.

I spend more time playing eShop games on my 3DS than actual games. There is a huge catalog of DSi-ware games that I feel gets ignored.
Any idea if the new Picross game is ever going to come out in the US?

I tried that and it saying "nothing new to update". I know Zelda 2 and at least one
other NES game should be having a update. I might just try deleting them and redownloading them.

Nevermind, I had to go to the store page to update it for some reason.

[edit] And yet after updating, it still has the generic Ambassador menu icon.

That the odd part - They put on the shop the generic icon until like weeks after, they update it to have the NES splash that Super Mario Bros has as an example. It took quite a while for Donkey Kong Jr. to get a proper splash, so it's really a Nintendo thing why some VC games don't get a proper splash when they're finally available to the public.

Does anyone know if Crashmo looks better than Pushmo? I'm not complaining about Pushmo at all, but the gameplay footage I've seen of Crashmo makes it seem more polished.

Graphically, Crashmo is not an improvement over Pushmo, if that's what you meant; it seems to use basically the same assets. It has, however, got more robust camera controls (necessary, since you're now moving the blocks around along two axes), more music, more characters, faster unlocking of features, and some SpotPass functionality that I don't know what it is.

I haven't been keeping up with the eshop, can I get some general recommendations for cheap 3DS eshop games? Aside from Pushmo or Crashmo, that is. I've already had my fill of Pushmo. Value/replayability is really important to me - the original WarioWare is by far my most played game on 3DS.

Little Inferno sounds pretty insane and good, wonder if the 3DS will get a port, given how Nintendo's revising their digital fronts all over.

Both of those adjectives are accurate. There's some pretty great humor, including the Ren & Stimpy "Blammo!"-esque in-game "Little Inferno" commercial. The gameplay does occasionally feel a bit simple, but the length of the game is just right for that. By the time I was finished with it, I definitely felt like I had gotten a game experience worth my money.

Oh, wait, is that a GameStop employee in the back? Hey, you, give me a refund. No, I don't care if it was my fault, just - look, am I the one with the microphone or not? REFUND, biyotch!

So I just got a Wii U after never having the original Wii. Will buying Virtual Console games via Wii mode tie them to my Ninendo Network ID that I set up for the U in any way? Or is it just a bad idea to go there until some proper Wii U version of the VC comes out (I believe that was supposed to be in the cards, unless I understood incorrectly)?

So I just got a Wii U after never having the original Wii. Will buying Virtual Console games via Wii mode tie them to my Ninendo Network ID that I set up for the U in any way? Or is it just a bad idea to go there until some proper Wii U version of the VC comes out (I believe that was supposed to be in the cards, unless I understood incorrectly)?

I believe it just ties your Wii stuff to the Wii U as though it were a Wii, and not to any account in particular. Since Wii Mode treats everything on there as though it were a Wii proper, all purchases and the like will be similar, which means you still have to use Wii Points. No idea if they'll ever tie the Wii Shop Channel purchases to a Nintendo Network ID at all, or allow folks to buy Wii Shop Channel items through the eShop proper, or whatever they may have planned for it.

That the odd part - They put on the shop the generic icon until like weeks after, they update it to have the NES splash that Super Mario Bros has as an example. It took quite a while for Donkey Kong Jr. to get a proper splash, so it's really a Nintendo thing why some VC games don't get a proper splash when they're finally available to the public.

Its not just missing the usual icon, its also without Save States.

I'm especially pissed that they didn't release the update since deleting and re-downloading it also wiped my End of Game save.

Ninja Master's actually is spelled "correctly." That's how SNK/ADK spell it on the cover and title screen of their game.

I love Mighty Switch Force. Aesthetically and aurally it's very very very much like something Vic Tokai/Treasure/Alfa/Tenky/etc. would have dropped onto the Genesis or Turbo Graphx back in the day. This is the Wii U version, never played it on the 3DS.